Downtime
by Romance on Express
Summary: Lydia finds balance to everything – even after-battle, girl time moments.


Fills the femslash february trope square Bed Sharing.

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Malia's a skittish thing – she handles adrenaline drops about the same as most people, but sometimes a little worse. When her eyes go wide and distant and her movements are sharp and abrasive even for her, Lydia somehow gets stuck with her aftercare program. Which would be considered invasive of her 'Me Time' if it weren't for the fact that Lydia doesn't mind a little close contact after the Wide World of Weird has invaded their after school hours.

Lydia forces Malia into a pair of loose pajama's with an "I don't care if you like to be naked; my parents will if they see you!" Next comes the box of emergency goodies, filled with treats brave freshmen have given Lydia as tokens for attention. Watching Malia eat chocolate for the first time in her rehumanized life was pretty entertaining, but now she's spoiled on the candies. Lydia firmly believes in "waste not, want not," so she stockpiles them for these moments when their nerves are high-strung and the stress of surviving the supernatural is edging a little more on their minds then the stress of passing next week's quiz.

At first Lydia would sit at her vanity and talked to normalize the space while Malia sat on the bed and zoned out until she couldn't stay conscious anymore. Now they've progressed in their relationship to the two of them laying side-by-side against the mound of pillows at the head of the bed, debating over the practicality of nail polish in a fight. There's a playlist of generic, boring, and utterly unexciting music playing from Lydia's iPhone that she put together for these exact situations. Occasionally they touch hips and shoulders comfortably, bumping into each other in a way that's become a little too familiar.

At one point they break out the pastel pink and begin an experiment, their virgin daiquiris put aside in favour of testing a theory. The colour is horrible on Malia but it's the fastest drying nail polish Lydia has – the werecoyote isn't known for her patience and Lydia would kill if half-wet paint got smeared on her duvet. While they wait Lydia does her own nails, reaffirming her stance in their argument.

"Bright colours draw the eye and can be an excellent distraction, either from a rushed makeup application or from your claws in the enemy's faces."

"I guess," Malia pants at her hand, clearly questioning how the shade of Mademoiselle would be beneficial.

"If this works you should wear reds. It's all psychology, but red is a symbol of power, entices victory. Shows the bad guys you mean business."

Malia shoots her a look, but turns back to her hand with more interest than before.

When time is up and Lydia's checked that her nails are dry Malia closes her eyes and focuses on the hand Lydia painted. The colour spreads and chips into a crackle effect as the nails morph into claws, but Lydia imagines red instead of pink and she thinks it might be just as effective anyway. The aftermath is a little ugly though, once the hand is a hand again, so Lydia takes it in hers and cleans it up, wiping away the fractured colour with remover and a cloth.

They sit back on the bed and take up their responsibly non-alcoholic drinks, and Malia's looking at her hand with contemplation in her eyes. Lydia makes a mental note to send the other girl home with a shade of ruby to practice with and starts talking about something inconsequential, not to engage but to distract. Fifteen minutes later and Malia's dozing on her side, hands loosely curled in front of her face. Lydia carefully puts away the chocolate and climbs back into bed, pulling a throw over the other girl and tucking another around herself.

She doesn't sleep as easily, wishes she could shut down like she once was able to before she got wrapped in with were-creatures and banshees and druids and everything else that high schoolers shouldn't have to deal with. But there's no more room for "what ifs" and "could have beens" in her life, so Lydia puts her remaining mental energy into something more meditative then sleep-like to pass the night hours.

When she opens her eyes again there's something heavy on Lydia's stomach and the clock says it's only two hours later. Lydia looks down to see an arm belonging to her bedmate slung over her body, Malia's front pressing into the gathered blankets between them. She turns away but shifts a little closer to the heat and tries to sleep again. Between the warmth and the weight Lydia can pretend its proper cuddling, and this time when she closes her eyes she doesn't open them again until daylight fills the room.


End file.
